During the 3 month “integration
period” we are in now we are not supposed to be working on our
“primary projects” (although I've started teaching – they
wanted me to, and I really wanted to get on with it – nice to have
a structure to my week; Phumi is a little envious – in a nice way),
but instead we are to get to know the neighborhood. During training
we learned several techniques to do this, and they really do help you
peel through the layers of a community very different from where we
come from, and they also help get us out of our hut and meeting with
people. A major getting-to-know-you technique is the “homestead
survey,” involving visits to each homestead in our community,
asking the same questions, accompanied by a local “counterpart”,
who handles introductions and translation.
Phumi is assigned to “Community
Health” (I'm in “Youth Development” - the 2 areas overlap, and
I see us crossing over a lot), and so she works with 5 women who are
umgcugcuteli, or Rural Health Motivators. For US $30/month these
women visit around 25 homesteads each and try to educate them on
sanitation, hygiene, disease prevention, and the like. Invariably
these women are highly knowledgeable, deeply committed to their task,
trusted and beloved by their community, exhausted caring for their
grandchildren and additional “Orphans or Vulnerable Children” (an
official category because school fees are waived for OVCs, sadly very
numerous), and living close to the edge of poverty. And sometimes
over that edge. When Phumi met her principal contact among the RHMs,
the umgcugcuteli's home had been robbed, stripped bare, probably by
young men seeking money for “dagga,” a strong form of marijuana
that is one of Swaziland's principal exports. Her daughter could not
go to school because her shoes were taken.
At these homesteads we meet the living
face of this country's failed economic and health system, and see in
front of us the human toll, at an individual level. At any given
time I'd say the inhabitants of maybe 20 % of these homesteads are
hungry. When we've finished asking how many adults and children live
there, how many go to school or are employed, whether there is a
latrine or a source of water on the homestead, we ask if anyone on
the homestead is HIV+. Most homesteads have someone who is, and the
RHMs know that; occasionally we get a response that they don't know
whether someone is positive, or, more likely, not all the people
there know their status. Then we ask if they have questions for us,
and typically they ask us for money. We could relieve their hunger
temporarily and not notice the expenditure, but, fortunately, the PC
forbids outright gifts. Once you start that in a community, you'll
be asked even more frequently. And a fundamental PC goal is
“sustainability:” “give a man a fish, you feed him for a day;
teach him to fish . . . .” These encounters are draining,
emotionally and physically.
Here we are interviewing 2 different
homesteads, both among the more prosperous of the ones we visit. At
the first the man questioned us closely about why the US isn't
stopping the war in Syria, and was very enthusiastic about Pres.
Obama. The 2nd picture shows in the background one of the
houses they make of stones held together with rows of parallel sticks
wired together. Strong, but well-ventilated.
Our household is composed of the
father (“Babe”, age 71), his wife (“Make” around 65), and his
brother's widow (Gogo, around 80). Make weaves grass mats on hot
afternoons on their porch, which is directly opposite our front door.
The 2 little girls who live here, her granddaughter and the domestic
helper's daughter, are also in the picture. Both Make and Gogo have
diabetes, which is impairing their eyesight. Diabetes is common in
this country, especially, I believe, among older women, I think
because of their diet. In training we learned that having HIV is
preferable to diabetes in this country, because the insulin for
diabetes is not as readily available and has to be refrigerated and
the injections are hazardous.
Sunday 9-29 we were invited to a local
church wedding by the PC staff member whose family
live in the area. The wedding was
scheduled for 10 a.m. in the very impressive teepee-shaped village
“community hall” which is “the Agape Church” on Sundays. My
Swazi PC boss is active in the church and helped organize the
wedding. Only a few dozen people were there when we arrived as
instructed at 10:30; it started shortly with the “Praise Team,” 1
woman soloist after another coming to the mike to lead the hymns,
till there were 6 of them up there, doing harmony and backup. We
were ushered to a seat directly behind the bride's (I'm pretty sure)
family, sitting, we were told “with the elders.” Oh, OK. By
11:45 there were 300 people there. We were introduced by name; we'd
previously met the pastor in going around the community. After much
singing, praying and sermons, the wedding wound up with a generous
meal at 2:45. I thought the children clustered around me as I ate
wanted to take my plate to help pick up, until I remembered a similar
circumstance at the primary school a few wees ago and was careful to
stop eating in time to leave some scraps on my plate when I handed it
to a watchful little girl. A boy bigger than she scraped my scraps
off the plate into the plastic back he carried for the purpose and
made off.
This picture shows the bride, groom
and wedding party on the decorated dais, and the “MC,” a staple
at Swazi weddings, invoking the deity' no doubt.
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